


Not So Tender or Mild

by RobinsonsWereHere



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: (kids get into a fistfight), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas Eve, Christmas pageant, Fluff, Gen, Minor Violence, barbara isn't dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22514485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsonsWereHere/pseuds/RobinsonsWereHere
Summary: Christmas Eve, 1974. Poplar is putting on it's christmas pageant, and it doesn't go as planned.The shepherds are sword fighting with their crooks.The angel Gabriel gets into a fistfight.The angel chorus and the manger animals start a game of tag.Someone needs to get this chaos under control... must the Nonnatus nurses do everything?
Relationships: Barbara Hereward & Original Child Character(s), Trixie Franklin & Original Child Character(s), Valerie Dyer & Original Child Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Not So Tender or Mild

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I know it's not Christmas, but I had this idea and I just really wanted to write it. This is set in an AU where Barbara survives sepsis, bc she and Tom deserved a happily ever after. The only other thing worth mentioning is that you might recognize the Davidsons... they're the Irish family from 7x06. I just didn't want to have to create new characters, LOL. Enjoy!

The Poplar Christmas Pageant is always some sort of ordeal, especially for the Herewards. More often than not, it all works out in the end, but nonetheless, Christmas Eve is perpetually hectic.

This year, Eve has finally gotten the coveted role of the Angel Gabriel. She’s the leader of the angel chorus, and has what might be the biggest speaking role, aside from the narrator. Lila claims she’s not jealous, though she has pouted a bit. Eve had gotten her to help her study her lines, and even though her sister is only seven, she’d barely stumbled over the words like ‘Nazareth’ and ‘Galilee’.

Now, Lila and Cora are playing tag with two other angels, the donkey, the star, and one of the wise men. Eve is hoping to join them, but right now, she’s sitting patiently as Aunt Trixie pins the bottom of her shiny halo into her hair.

“Hm…” having finished with the hairpiece, Trixie sits back, regarding Eve with sharp blue eyes. “I think you need a little something more. How about I go get some of my glittery blush for our angel chorus? It’ll be angel dust.”

Eve grins. “Awesome!”

Her aunt stands, hands on her hips as she surveys the crowd. “Look at this mess,” she murmurs, clucking her tongue. “Boys and girls! I think we need to calm down! Cubs, just because your Pack Leader went to find the myrrh for our third wise man, that doesn’t mean all order has vanished! In your seats, if you will!”

Slowly, the tag game ceases, as does a card game and two arm wrestling matches. Eve finds herself surrounded by the nine members of the angel chorus, including both of her sisters. Cora climbs onto her lap, and Eve groans. She’s heavy, for a five-year-old.

“Good. Now, I’ve got to run and get some glitter for our little angels--” Trixie beams at the assembled chorus-- “and I want all of you to behave for the next few minutes. If you don’t do it for me, just remember, Phyllis will be back soon!” With a final wink, she hurries out of the room. The volume quickly increases, but the group is still much calmer than a minute ago.

Eve is bored, and the halo hurts her scalp, and Cora on her lap is heavy and hot. As if that weren’t enough, she feels someone behind her tug at her plait.

“Don’t,” she grumbles. She tries to turn and glare at whoever is is, but with Cora on top of her, she can’t. She hears the shepherds giggle, and then feels another pull. “Stop!”

A seat away from her, Lila turns around, kneeling on her chair and sticking her tongue out at the boys. “It’s Terry,” she informs Eve.

Eve groans again. Terry Davidson is dumb and not very nice, but his mum is friends with Eve’s mum and they have to have dinner together at least every couple of weeks. “Stop, Terry.”

In response, she feels another yank, harder this time. 

“Terry!” This time, Eve pushes Cora off her lap, ignoring her sister’s cry of protest. “I said stop!”

He yanks her plait once more even as she’s turning around. Eve,flying into a rage as only a ten-year-old can, promptly punches him in the face.

Go for the nose, Auntie Val always says. Not the teeth. If you punch someone in the teeth, you’ll tear up your knuckles.

Sure enough, by the time Eve vaults over-- or rather, _knocks_ over-- her chair, Terry’s nose is gushing red.

Terry howls and wipes at his nose, but soon enough, he’s steady once again, and moves to charge Eve.

“Wait, you can’t fight her!” Another Cub Scout protests. “She’s a girl!”

“She punched me!” Terry declares. 

And with that, he hurls himself bodily at Eve.

She probably should have thought this through.

\---

The pageant service starts at seven, and at ten til, Barbara still has a hundred things left to do. Thankfully, Shelagh is arranging the choir, and Fred is lighting the candles, which means the next item of business for Barbara should be the pageant… shouldn’t the children all be ready to take their seats in the church soon? 

Barbara hurries in the direction of the parish hall, but before she gets there, she spots Phyllis. “Oh, Phyllis! Good, you found the myrrh. Are all the other props ready, then?”

“Last I checked, Trixie was helping with the halos, and everything else was done. Oh, look, here she is now.”

“Angel dust!” Trixie exclaims, which sounds absolutely incomprehensible, until she holds up a container of makeup glitter. “I thought our chorus could use a little extra sparkle.”

“Marvelous,” Barbara agrees, but as the three of them hurry toward the hall, another thought occurs to her. “Wait. If you and Phyllis are both here, who’s with the kids?”

“Nurse Franklin was still there when I left,” Phyllis says, subtly pushing the blame aside.

“Oh, they can’t have gotten into too much trouble in two minutes,” Trixie declares.

Barbara winces, quickening her pace. “Oh, dear.” She knows from experience that two minutes is enough time for a room full of children to descend into chaos, but even her sense of foreboding can’t prepare her for what she sees when she pushes open the door.

The first thing she sees is the circle of children, all watching something in their midst. Before she can figure out what it is they’re watching, a pair of shepherds sword fighting with their crooks nearly swing their makeshift weapons into her head. Barbara ducks and steps through, and the boys instantly break up, looking ashamed.

“Sorry, nurse.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Hereward.”

Once she can see into the crowd of children, Barbara finds exactly what she’d expected: a fight. A red-headed boy she’d recognize if she could see his face is on the floor grappling with--

“Oh. good lord,” Barbara exclaims. “Eve! What are you _doing?”_

Of course, her daughter doesn’t hear her, so Barbara breaks through the circle of children, who are slowly dispersing anyway, seeing that adults have arrived. She has to pull the two apart, dragging Eve away from the boy, who turns out to be Terry Davidson. “What is going _on,_ Eve?”

Her oldest daughter pushes herself into a sitting position, scowling and literally spitting blood. “He pulled my hair!”

Barbara wipes gently at her split lip. “So you broke his nose?”

Trixie speaks up before Eve can. “Barbara, I think she did!”

At that, Barbara has to take a deep breath. “Right. Phyllis, please tell me someone has a medical kit with them.”

“I think Nurse Dyer brought one.”

“Could you go find her, please? And Aileen Davidson, if you would.”

Phyllis nods and hurries off, leaving Trixie trying to assess Terry’s injuries, and Barbara giving Eve a once-over of her own. Her daughter already has knuckle marks over her cheekbone, the beginning of what will be quite a shiner. Her split lip is swollen but not really bleeding anymore. She clucks her tongue. “You’ll be alright, then. We’ll get you some ice for your eye.”

Eve nods, wincing a little. “Doesn’t hurt that much.”

Barbara sighs disapprovingly, running her thumb lightly over Eve’s cheekbone. Before she can say anything else, they’re joined by more company.

“What’s all this, then?” Valerie asks, slipping easily into the mess as if she were in uniform at the clinic instead of in a good dress in the church hall. “Did someone have a scrap?”

“I hit his nose, like you told me,” Eve says. “Because if you hit the teeth your knuckles get scraped up.

From the look on Valerie’s face, she’d rather Eve not have said that in earshot of Barbara. When the nurses make eye contact, Valerie shrugs apologetically, but Barbara just shakes her head. That’s an issue for later.

“Oh, blast, Terry,” comes the Irish voice of Mrs. Davidson, “what trouble have you gotten into now?”

“I’m afraid Eve started the fight, Mrs. Davidson,” Barbara says apologetically. “Eve, aren’t you going to apologize?”

“I will not!” Eve folds her arms over her chest. “He pulled my hair!”

“Eve Hereward!” Barbara doesn’t really lose her temper with her children, but she’s getting close. “You did not need to get into a fight. You broke Terry’s nose. You are in the wrong here, even if he did start it. Apologize.”

Eve glowers in Terry’s direction. “Sorry I broke your nose.”

“He should know better than to mess,” Mrs. Davidson says. “Terry? No more hair pulling, alright?”

“Yes Mum,” he mumbles, his voice nasally due to Trixie holding his nose.

“And say thank you to the nice nurse helping you.”

“Thank me after I do this part,” Trixie counters. In the next movement, she resets the fractured bone, and Terry cries out.

“That’s it, that’s it, you’re done,” Trixie assures him. She takes the gauze Valerie holds out and presses it to Terry’s nose. “Just keep that there for a minute.”

Barbara looks around. “Is anyone else hurt?”

Cora comes up to her, sniffling. “Eve pushed me off the chair.”

“I did not!” 

Barbara presses her lips together, pulling her youngest into her lap. “Eve--”

“I didn’t mean to!”

Before she can respond to that, another person steps into the hall. “I think it’s time to get all of our pageant members down to the--”

Looking up, she sees her husband in the doorway, a hand over his mouth as he regards the scene. “Don’t curse,” she reminds him.

“Right.” 

“Any words of advice, Reverend?” Aileen Davidson asks, replacing the bloody gauze on Terry’s nose with a fresh one.

“Ah.” Tom still appears to be taking in the chaos in front of him. He looks between Eve and Terry. “Well, the Gospel of Mark tells us that when we stand praying, if we hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that our Father in heaven may forgive us our sins.”

Eve nods, used to the biblical lessons. Terry frowns, finally looking up. “Sorry I pulled your hair.”

She shrugs. “Thanks.”

Barbara clears her throat.

“I already apologized, Mum!”

“I want you to do it without glaring daggers at him, please.”

Eve sighs. “Sorry I punched you.”

“And I’m sorry about your dress, Nurse,” Mrs. Davidson says to Trixie.

Trixie sighs and looks down at her shiny green christmas dress, now stained with dark blood. “Oh, no matter.” She glances at her watch. “Goodness! I think it’s time to herd all these angels and shepherds over to the church for the pageant!”

And thus begins another ordeal.

\---

The Poplar Christmas pageant of 1974 will be remembered for a long, long time. The Angel Gabriel delivers her lines from the pulpit, sporting a clear black eye. One of the shepherds carries a wad of gauze held to his nose instead of a crook. Only half of the angel chorus has angel dust. But the show must go on, and go on it does.

All in all, it’s not anywhere close to a failure. The christmas story is told, as always. The children sing, drawing ‘awww’s from their parents. The baby Jesus is a love baby who is perfectly happy in Mary’s (Angela Turner’s) arms. And by the time they sing ‘Joy to the World’ it seems as though all of the stress and headache of the last few hours has melted away.

Christmas eve might always start off hectic, but the message of peace and love makes it through anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! Leave a comment or kudos, or find me on tumblr at nursebarbarahereward !


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